Professor Richard Rondel, 1931-2021

Professor Richard Rondel MBBS, Dip. Pharm. Med., Dip. Obst. RCOG, FRCP, FFPM

Oct 1931 – May 2021

Professor Richard Rondel, one of the ‘founding fathers’ of pharmaceutical medicine, has passed away, aged 89.

Professor Rondel was a member of the Royal College of Physicians Steering Committee that founded the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine in 1989 and set up the original infrastructure, articles and standing orders. He then served as FPM Registrar from 1989 to 1995. He was also an active member of BrAPP for many decades and was part of the small group who laid the foundations of IFAPP in 1970, then becoming President of IFAPP from 1978-81.

Professor Rondel graduated from the University of London in the mid-1950s. He held teaching hospital posts in general medicine and clinical pathology in the National Health Service for seven years, before entering the pharmaceutical industry. Between 1963 and 1981, he occupied senior positions in clinical research, then worked for fifteen years as an international consultant.

Professor Rondel was appointed Visiting Professor in Clinical Practice at the University of Surrey in 1996. He was passionate about safety and wrote and edited numerous papers and books on the subject, publishing one of the first books on adverse events in 1972. Most recently, Professor Rondel was elected an IFAPP ‘HERO in Pharmaceutical Medicine’ in March 2021, a mark of the enduring legacy of his work and passion for the specialty.

A fuller tribute to the extraordinary life and career of Professor Rondel will follow in due course.